英语翻译
Almost all loans at interest are made in money,either of paper,or of gold and silver.But what the borrower really wants,and what the lender really supplies him with,is not the money,but the money’s worth,or the goods which it can purchase.If he wants it as a stock for immediate consumption,it is those goods only which he can place in that stock.If he wants it as a capital for employing industry,it is from those goods only that the industrious can be furnished with the tools,materials,and maintenance,necessary for carrying on their work.By means of the loan,the lender,as it were,assigns to the borrower his right to a certain portion of the annual produce of the land and labour of the country,to be employed as the borrower pleases.4
The quantity of stock,therefore,or,as it is commonly expressed,of money which can be lent at interest in any country,is not regulated by the value of the money,whether paper or coin,which serves as the instrument of the different loans made in that country,but by the value of that part of the annual produce which,as soon as it comes either from the ground,or from the hands of the productive labourers,is destined not only for replacing a capital,but such a capital as the owner does not care to be at the trouble of employing himself.As such capitals are commonly lent out and paid back in money,they constitute what is called the monied interest.It is distinct,not only from the landed,but from the trading and manufacturing interests,as in these last the owners themselves employ their own capitals.Even in the monied interest,however,the money is,as it were,but the deed of assignment,which conveys from one hand to another those capitals which the owners do not care to employ themselves.Those capitals may be greater in almost any proportion,than the amount of the money which serves as the instrument of their conveyance; the same pieces of money successively serving for many different loans,as well as for many different purchases.A,for example,lends to W a thousand pounds,with which W immediately purchases of B a thousand pounds worth of goods.B having no occasion for the money himself,lends the identical pieces to X,with which X immediately purchases of C another thousand pounds worth of goods.C in the same manner,and for the same reason,lends them to Y,who again purchases goods with them of D.In this manner the same pieces,either of coin or of paper,may,in the course of a few days,serve as the instrument of three different loans,and of three different purchases,each of which is,in value,equal to the whole amount of those pieces.
What the three monied men,A,B,and C,assign to the three borrowers,W,X,Y,is the power of making those purchases.In this power consist both the value and the use of the loans.The stock lent by the three monied men,is equal to the value of the goods which can be purchased with it,and is three times greater than that of the money with which the purchases are made.Those loans,however,may be all perfectly well secured,the goods purchased by the different debtors being so employed,as,in due time,to bring back,with a profit,an equal value either of coin or of paper.And as the same pieces of money can thus serve as the instrument of different loans to three,or for the same reason,to thirty times their value,so they may likewise successively serve as the instrument of repayment.5